The Gender of Green Revolution Expertise

Abstract The authors examine the career of the botanist and librarian Dorothy Inez Parker with the aim of understanding the role of women and libraries in the history of the Green Revolution. Trained in botany but struggling to secure a career as a scientist, Parker joined the staff of the Rockefeller Foundation in 1945 as a bibliographic assistant to the Mexican Agricultural Program. The subsequent decades saw her develop new professional status as an international expert in library development and management. She ultimately landed in the foundation's New York office, where she managed a portfolio of library-related grants and programs as assistant director (and later associate director) for agricultural sciences from 1960 to 1970. The authors contend that restoring Parker to the larger historical narrative of the Green Revolution makes visible gendered professional expectations and possibilities in mid-twentieth-century science, philanthropy, and international development. Their reading of Parker's career also makes visible the critical role that library science and related work played in the Green Revolution. Bringing libraries and librarians into view places women at the center of Green Revolution scientific and technological developments.